Baie-Johan-Beetz is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality ...

and village in the Côte-Nord

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

of the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

, located some east of

Havre-Saint-Pierre Havre-Saint-Pierre is a town on Pointe-aux-Esquimaux, which is on the Quebec north shore (Côte-Nord) of the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. Located along Route 138 some east of Sept-Îles, it is the largest town and seat of the Minganie RCM, ...

. It has the lowest population of all incorporated places in the Côte-Nord region.

History

Joseph Tanguay, originally from Berthier, settled at the Little Watshishou River in 1854. Tanguay and his sons fished mostly for salmon on the Piashti, Corneille, Petite Watshishou, Watshishou and Quetachou rivers. In 1862 Tanguay moved to Baie Piashti. Other early settlers came from the

Magdalen Islands The Magdalen Islands (french: Îles de la Madeleine ) are a small archipelago in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with a land area of . While part of the Province of Quebec, the islands are in fact closer to the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland ...

. The place was originally identified as "Piastre Bay", from the Innu expression ''piashite-pets'', meaning "there where the water passes over/on top", or possibly originating from the word ''piashtibé'', meaning "dry bay" or "where the water rises", which is a reference to the local bay that during low tide runs dry. The bay's name was spelled in a variety of ways, including Piashti Bay, Pillage Bay, Baie-de-Pillage, Piastibe, Piashte Bay, and Piestebé. Perhaps for this reason, its residents expressed a desire to change the village's name to Baie-Johan-Beetz in 1910.

Johan Beetz Johan Beetz (August 19, 1874 – March 26, 1949) was a Canadian naturalist of Belgian origin. He settled in a small coastal town in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, which was later renamed Baie-Johan-Beetz in his honour, along with the nearby b ...

(1874-1949) was a Belgian naturalist, who lived in the Bay from 1897 to 1922. He had moved there to breed fur animals, particularly foxes, and built a luxurious manor that residents today call ''le château'' (the castle). The bay was renamed in 1914, but the name was not officially adopted until 1965 when the place was incorporated. In 1996, Highway 138 was extended to Baie-Johan-Beetz, linking it to the municipality of Havre-Saint-Pierre and thereby breaking its isolation.

Demographics

Population

Language

Climate

Transports

The city is served by the Baie-Johan-Beetz Seaplane Base (SPB) .

References

Sources

*

{{Authority control Municipalities in Quebec Incorporated places in Côte-Nord